that they are a mystery whose key is lost. Just so long
as the Sonnets are considered as a species of enigma they will be
misunderstood and misinterpreted. It was not Shakespeare's habit to talk
in riddles or to propound psychological problems: of all poets except
Chaucer he is the most simple, direct and straightforward.

We have in the _Amoretti_ of Spenser, and in the _Astrophel and Stella_
of Sir Philip Sidney, admirable examples of autobiographical poems
written mostly in sonnet stanza, of irregular and varied construction
and subject, although the general theme is the same. Surely we may bring
to the study of Shakespeare's poems the same simple method used in
reading these. Poets of his own day, and using in their highest flights
the form which was Shakespeare's familiar relaxation, nobody has tried
to ascribe to Sidney and Spenser metaphysical mysteries and
psychological conceits. Let us hope that some day this mistaken idolatry
of Shakespeare, which besmokes his shrine with concealing clouds of
incense, will be done away with, and that we shall be allowed to behold
the simple truth, which never suffers in his case for being naked.

In his 76th Sonnet, Shakespeare says,

Why write I still all one, ever the same.
And keep invention in a noted weed,
_That every word doth almost tell my name_,
_Showing their birth and whence they did proceed_?
Oh know, sweet love, I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument.

With this explicit declaration of Shakespeare, the general character of
the poems, and the similar writings of his friends and contemporaries,
we can but consider the Sonnets as autobiographical poems, written
during a period of time beginning certainly as early as 1598 (when Meres
speaks of Shakespeare's having written sonnets), and ceasing some time
before their first publication in 1609. In the same way were written the
poems composing Tennyson's _In Memoriam_, which, although dedicated to
"A.H.H.," close with a long poem addressed to the poet's sister.

The first and principal series of the Sonnets (divided from the second
in many editions of Shakespeare by a mark of separation) is clearly
addressed to a male friend. The extremely lover-like use of language by
which they are characterized was a common trait of the age; and here
again we see the necessity of thoroughly understanding the atmosphere
that Shakespeare breathed. To us, with our frigid vocabulary